Zoids: Battle Century  History of Zi
by Kantorock
Summary: The history of Planet Zi as it happens in the fanverse "Zoids: Battle Century."
1. Chapter 1

_**Zoids**_  
>Battle Century<p>

History of Delpoi

Chapter One

Pre-History  
>Located at the far edge of the Scutum-Centaurus arm of the Milky Way galaxy, in the constellation of Cygnus, there existed a solitary star system. Its star was an F-class yellow dwarf that had entered into its main stage roughly three billion years ago. Orbiting this star was a total of twenty-three planets, two asteroid belts, a series of comets, and a myriad of moons.<p>

Of all the planets found in this star system only one was of true scientific interest – the seventh planet. This planet was slightly larger than the planet Earth, and orbited its star at a rate of two-point-four standard years, with a single day rotation of just under forty seven hours. In turn, this planet was orbited by three natural satellites – a rocky small yellow moon, am icy medium blue moon, and a large volcanic red moon. The planet's atmosphere was much like Earth's, being made up of seventy-seven percent nitrogen, twenty-one percent oxygen, with small amounts of other gasses. Being positioned in what scientist considered the system's "circumstellar habitable zone", otherwise known as the "goldilocks zone", liquid water had managed to form on its surface in great abundance. The water itself constituted about seventy-five percent of the planet's surface, with the remainder of the planet's surface given over to several large continents, and hundreds of small islands scattered throughout its seven oceans.

The formation of liquid water brought with it the perfect conditions for the development of life. However, unlike life that had developed on Earth, the life on this planet was not entirely based on interacting chains of carbon. If looked at under a microscope one would find that its DNA incorporated several metallic and inorganic elements, forming a type of biological alloy that was perfectly suited to coping with the planet's unusually high level of what we would consider poisonous metals. This unique mutation caused the life of this planet to take on an eerily robotic appearance. How this strange twist of evolution occurred has never been fully understood despite countless hours of research. Suffice to say, this metal-based life thrived and proliferated in environments that we would find hostile - if not downright inhospitable.

Like all life it started simply, evolving from simplistic single-celled organisms into progressively more complex shapes and forms that we today would find familiar in appearance. It was born in the vast oceans were it fed off the solar energy emitted by the planet's sun – in much the same way as plankton do, as well as around deep thermal vents found scattered across the planet's ocean floors. As the millenniums progressed so too did evolution. What had once been simple single-celled organisms grew into multi-celled creatures that dominated the waters' depths. From there life began to spread onto dry land. First came the forests of alloy-like grasses and jungles of tree-like plants; animal life followed. These animals quickly adapted to the new environments they found themselves in. Some taking on the characteristics we associate with herbivores, grazing on the overwhelming abundance of vegetation that dominated the landscape. Others took on the characteristics of carnivores, and preyed upon the weak, diseased, and young herbivores that had flourished in this progression of life.

Rise to Dominance  
>As time passed a singular species began to stand out from all the others. At first there was little to distinguish themselves from their simian cousins of the planet's central continent. And then, ever so slowly, they began to stand upright, and show a degree of intelligence that we attribute to great apes and chimpanzees. With their increased intelligence came the use of tools. At first these tools were simple, just sticks and rocks used to help in the gathering of food; later these tools grew more complex to take on the appearance of primitive axes, daggers, and spears. This progression was in direct reflection of the species' growing ability to learn, associate, and remember.<p>

Eventually these humanoids became nomadic bands of primitive hunter-gatherers. As a "Stone Age" people they found life a continual struggle for survival. Roaming the wilderness in search for food and shelter presented many dangers. They were in constant competition with not only other predators, but also with each other. With no knowledge of medicine or preventive practices, sickness and disease were major killers, second only to predators and child-birth. Life expectancy was short, barely lasting more than a few decades.

The domestication of fire would prove to be a major boon to the species. It allowed them to advance in their evolutionary development. For the first time in the species' history there was security from the cold, the darkness, and the fear that the night brought. Most importantly, though, this new security brought with it the opportunity to dream and invent. With this came the foundations of culture and society.

Birth of a Civilization  
>Roughly thirty thousand years would pass before the true signs of civilization would appear. By this time they had adopted an agricultural society, having learned to construct permanent settlements, and to domesticate animals. The discovery of smelting had transformed the way they hunted, fought, and lived. Moreover, the way they communicated had evolved. This new form of language allowed for the conveyance of complex ideas in comparison to the generalities of the past. The foundations of civilization as we know it had been born.<p>

The Zoidayrians, as they called themselves, were a sophisticated people. They had developed extensive communities with feudal forms of government based around cultivating an agrarian society. However, these growing communities put a strain on what the land could produce. The demand for more land led communities to absorb their neighbors. Sometimes these integrations were peaceful; most of the time it was a violent and bloody affair – it was not unusual for wars to be fought over just a few acres of land. Each battle would result with one community being absorbed into another, creating larger, more robust communities that would eventually form into powerful fiefdoms.

Age of War  
>By this time warfare between fiefdoms was commonplace. These conflicts were highly ritualized, and extremely violent, with the losing side becoming sacrifices to the winner's gods. As the fighting increased, the warlord kings began to seek new ways to dominate their enemies. The end result came in the form of the Mechabonicas. Originally they were nothing more than domesticated animals trained for war. Some served as mounts, carrying their riders into combat at a full charge. Others were used as siege weapons in the taking of fortified settlements. In most cases the introduction of such war beasts onto the battlefield was enough to turn the tide of the battle.<p>

Eventually full scale war erupted amongst the kingdoms of the central continent that the Zoidayrians called "Dir'poay." Each nation sought to dominate the others and lay claim to their lands. Each new battlefield confrontation brought more and more casualties. With the battles between neighboring nations growing fiercer and fiercer emperors and kings demanded a more effective way to defend their territories. Eager to expand their knowledge, Zoidayrian alchemists began searching for answers. The deeper they dug, and the more they experimented, the more they came to the conclusion that the key to winning the civil wars laid in the Mechabonicas. Through their dark sciences these alchemists transformed the way war was fought. In rituals more akin to magic than science Mechabonicas were fused with the most advanced weaponry and equipment of their times. Unveiled upon the Field of Honor, each new clash brought with it new war beasts, and new technologies to the point that modern human were quickly surpassed in a matter of a few centuries.

Rise to the Imperial  
>By the end of the Zoidayrians' civil war only three governments remained – Zoidary, Metalon, and Zrk. Each was ruled over by a singular warrior king from whom the kingdoms were named after. Enriched by their war-gotten gains, and realizing that another war would end in the devastation of all three nations, the kingdoms agreed to an alliance – an alliance in the form of a single unified imperial republic.<p>

There were those that naturally resisted the idea of a peaceful unification. Those that rose up against this coexistence were swiftly hunted down and put to death. However, with each quelled revolt another sprang up in its place. It was soon realized that something must be done before a full-scale revolution was ignited. It was decided that a contest would be put in place to sate the people's bloodlust. These contests took the form of state sponsored gladiatorial games, in which warriors from far and wide would came to battle for fame and fortune in specially designed arenas.

With the passing of years the gladiatorial contests grew in popularity. The rush and excitement of public executions and staged murders was as a drug to the public. It was quickly evident that their addiction ran deep, and their appetite for carnage insatiable. It was inevitable that the Mechabonicas would be introduced into the games. The appearance of these former war beasts upon the arena floor proved to be infectious. The games grew more sophisticated, the rules more abstract. The violent blood-sport of a civilization was quickly refined into art.

Religious Rebellion  
>The next five hundred years would see the Zoidayrian empire advance into a cultural renaissance. The longing for dreams made reality transformed the people as the arts and the sciences flourished in abundance. The life of the common individual had been elevated to one of leisure and indulgence. Moreover, Zoidayrian society had spread all throughout the planet; there was hardly a place to be found that one could not escape the sight of their towering bastion-like metropolises.<p>

As their culture advanced so too did their views on the divine. Once, the Zoidayrians worshiped a pantheon of deities that dedicated themselves to war, victory, and death. It was through the belief in these warrior gods that they found the will to survive in a world of constant dangers, and the ability to unify themselves in a solitary nation. And yet, the belief in these gods and goddesses waned as the use of science and technology became everyday occurrences. In time, science came into the position of popular religion. Deities of knowledge and discovery were installed, and new idols were created in their image. Seemingly overnight museums became churches, scientists were elevated to the position of priest, their laboratories becoming shrines to the divine, and their papers and journals were as biblical scripture to the people.

And yet, every paradise has its serpents…

The abolishment of the old deities angered many. Not all Zoidayrians had fully forsaken their war-like ways in favor of this new, single world religion. They chafed under the rhetoric and practices of the technocratic papacy. Unable to continue the traditions handed down to them by their forefathers, they began to protest. It started out simply enough, with public rallies and peaceful demonstrations; it escalated into rioting mob of wanton destruction.

The Empire responded swiftly to this near-sudden outcry for the old ways, as it did in times long past. Protesters and advocates were arrested and put on mock-trials for "crimes against the State" only to be found guilty and executed as heretics. But as much as the Empire sought to squash the uprising, the more the Empire found that the old-ways ran deeper than they had imagined. The State quickly mobilized its armed forces, and declared martial law. Everyone was suspect, and many innocents were lost to the State's paranoia. Yet, as hard as it tried, The State could not stop the religious revolt. The streets turned into battlefields between malcontents and Imperial enforcers. Not even the ever advancements in technology and anti-terrorist tactics could stem the rising anarchy…

Thorne  
>As the Zoidayrians waged their civil war a threat of a different kind bore down upon the planet in the form of a rogue comet roughly twenty kilometers in diameter. Having originated from the opposite side of the sun, there had been little forewarning of its coming. By the time the Zoidayrians took notice it was too late.<p>

The comet entered the planet's atmosphere at a shallow angle, achieving speeds in excess of one-hundred thousand kilometers-per-hour upon contact with the planet's mesosphere. It circled the planet twice, impacting at sixty-nine degrees north, fifty-three degrees, in of the Northern Continent's eastern peninsula.

The impact itself was devastating. The energy released was on the scales of over one million megatons, and literally vaporizing the land and boiling away the waters that surrounded it. Tsunamis of unimaginable size inundated coastlines, drowning islands and continents alike. Once dormant volcanoes awoke with unbridled fury as impact shock-waves reverberated back and forth through the planet's interior. Ash blanketed the skies, blocking out the sun in a matter of hours. The world as it was known had come to an end…

Fallout  
>The planet was forever changed by the comet impact. The initial impact had caused half a continent to sink below the waves. The Central Continent was shattered into three pieces, and a new inland sea was created by the ensuing tidal waves in the center of the Eastern Continent. The atmospheric jet streams and oceanic belts had been disrupted, causing the planet's weather to run wild with electromagnetic storms and hurricanes that dwarfed the continents they battered. Ash and dust that had been thrown up now enveloped the globe, blotting out sun as it rained down like finely abrasive snow. Temperatures fluctuate as scorching heat waves radiated out from ground zero only to be replaced by below freezing windstorms. Ice and snow quickly took hold, locking three-fifths of the planet in deep ice age.<p>

Eighty percent of all animal and plant life was dead within the first five months. The first to die off was the majority of the plankton-like creatures, for without sunlight they could not generate the energy they needed for survival. In turn this sparked an escalating chain reaction with the next species on the food chain succumbing to hunger, starvation, and hypothermia. Those that had managed to survive did so by burying themselves deep within the earth, hiding from a world turned on its head, or scavenging off the corpses of those that succumbed to the elements.

The majority of Zoidayrians had been ill-prepared for the comet's arrival. Their religious war had raged fiercely across the planet, and their attention had not been focused upon the stars. When the impact occurred many still held the belief that their gods of technology and war would save them. Those few that had managed to prepare had done so by stockpiling a wealth of supplies within deep underground bunkers. They in turn sealed themselves away from the rest of the world in these bunkers in hopes of outlasting the impact's effects. Those unlucky enough not to have prepared founds themselves in a constant day-to-day struggle for life not seen since their primitive ape-like ancestors. Food and drink became a scarce and precious commodity. Sickness and disease, once held at bay by their sacred medications, now ran rampant and unchecked like never before. It was as if their gods had forsaken them for reasons they could not comprehend…

Regenesis  
>It would take several thousand years before the planet fully stabilized and recovered from the impact. During this time life would take a divergence in its evolutionary development. Plants began to form interconnecting root systems to help resist the fierce windstorms and sudden earthquakes. Animals began to develop thick exoskeletons that were, for the most part, resistant to the electromagnetic storms that would plague the planet for millennia to come. Moreover, both would begin to coalesce their vital organs into a singular spheroid structure that could survive and act independently if its body died. In a strange twist of fate, the cataclysm that had brought an end to the world had birthed the most recent ancestors of modern zoids.<p>

As the world returned to normal, and proto-zoid life flourished, the Zoidayrians found themselves changed. The changes themselves were gradual, being so slow that they themselves barely noticed the alterations. Their once delicate bodies had adapted to a much harsher environment. Their skin had developed into thin but resilient exoskeleton. Their bones had become reinforced with a strong internal lattice. Their nervous system crystalized, taking the form similar to semi-solid quartz, allowing for quicker reflexes, and an ability to learn and remember activities and events that far exceeded their previous capabilities. Moreover, they began to develop an almost symbiotic kinship with the newly emerging proto-zoids. In the span of a few short centuries the Zoidayrians forgot about the technological empire they had carved for themselves, and returned to an agricultural society. They forsook their gods that had abandoned them in their greatest time of need in favor of deities of elemental and primordial powers that now ruled the reshaped world. Eventually the very name "Zoidayrian" faded from collective memory only to be replaced by a new name – "Zoidian…"


	2. Chapter 2

_**Zoids**_  
>Battle Century<p>

History of Delpoi

Chapter Two

Age of Tribes

Towards the beginning of what we would call the Early Holocene period, the Zoidians began to dominate the planet that they had come to call "Zi." With fewer natural disasters to reduce their numbers their population began to expand at a phenomenal rate, allowing them to colonize the majority of the planet within the span of several thousand years.

It was during this rapid expansion that the zoidians began to organize themselves in cohesive communities known as "tribes." Each tribe was governed by hereditary leader – a "chieftain", and was completely self-sufficient. This self-sufficiency insulated most of the tribes from the rest of the world, causing them to have very little need for interaction with outsiders. Those few that wandered beyond their tribal lands were often viewed with suspicion, skepticism, and distrust if not outright prejudice. As expected, this self-imposed isolation provided a unique opportunity for cultural development. Separated from outside influences, each tribe was allowed to form its own unique language, and experiment with a new customs and societies. Some tribes we would immediately recognize as being Egyptian, European, South American, or Japanese; other tribes would be totally foreign to us.

Zoid Advent Calendar

At this point in time earthquakes still wracked the majority of the Central Continent, now known by the Zoidian word for "cradle" - "Delpoi." These earthquakes behaved oddly, as they did not originate from any known fault line. Instead, they emanated from deep within the planet's mantle, and were caused by sudden and violent shifts of swirling magma columns. It goes without saying that these earthquakes were devastating, and would bring with them extreme changes.

One such change came in the form of a unification of Delpoi's tribes. For some time the tribes had dealt with the earthquakes the best way they knew how – on their own. They stocked supplies, reinforced their buildings, and braced for the worst. However, this simply was not enough; it quickly came to light that outside help would eventually be needed. The offer of help was slow in coming, and even slower to be accepted, but in the end the tribes united. Within ten years the fifty-plus tribes that had dotted the landscape had coalesced into eight massive tribes that dominated the Central Continent. This unification was known as the Great Reconfiguration.

The second change came five years after the final formalities of the Great Reconfiguration. During a routine surveying trip of a recently collapsed hillside in eastern Delpoi, a geologist by the name of Babahot discovered a megalithic structure half buried beneath the earth. Investigations of the structure proved it to be a shrine created by ancient zoidians to warship the Goddess of the Hunt and Harvest, Seph'pherian. Upon the temple's alter was discovered a massive tablet measuring three meters, by one meter, by one-half meter. Formed out of a single block of steel, the tablet's face was engraved with a scene of a great hunt and numerous prayers of thanks for the abundance of food for that year. Researchers dated the tablet back to over a thousand years; the shrine itself proved to be several centuries older than the tablet found within it. These discoveries caused a windfall of controversy. Detractors accused Babahut of fabricating the tablet. They claimed he had constructed the temple and monolith out of the selfish need for fame and scholarly recognition. Others dismissed the idea of a pre-modern zoidian culture as nothing more than the fantasies of a man gone mad. In the end, after extensive study and testing, the majority of the tribes agreed that Babahut's claims were true, and in the process caused a craze to sweep throughout the tribes that would become the foundations of modern zoidian archeology. In reflection of this, a new calendar system – the Zoid Advent Calendar - was installed, with its starting date being the day that the tablet had been forged. The year of this agreement was calculated to be ZAC 1693.

Man Made Marvels

The decade of 1890 saw an industrial revolution sweep throughout Deploi. Voltz Brayer had just published his theory on the thermodynamics of water, causing a great interest in the use of steam power. Jajuan Rolinar, who had discovered the properties of electricity ten years prior, had just introduced his latest invention, the light bulb, to the world, and through it changed how homes and businesses were lit. However, there was one particular innovation that would ultimately define this decade – the invention of the modern domestic zoid.

For centuries zoidians had been taming proto-zoids to be used as food sources, beasts of burden, and even companionship. Likewise, it had been a long standing practice for zoidians to modify proto-zoids to suit their own purposes, either through selective breeding or extensive body modification. For a man named Frederick Vealhelm the idea of modifying the appearance and functionality of a proto-zoid to fit the needs of its owner was taken one step further. Where one would normally outfit a proto-zoid with a saddle and harness, Vealhelm envisioned a more direct means of control. The process he invented was very time consuming, taking months of hard and bloody work to produce a single zoid. Many zoidians found this type of modification appalling, and considered it too cruel to be enacted upon any living creature.

It would take the efforts of an engineer by the name Joie Boyd to make the dream of mass producing modern, "domestic" zoids a reality. To her the answer laid in the creation of an artificial body, and not the painful body modification that ended the lives of so many proto-zoids. The idea of implanting a newly budded zoidcore into a prefabricated body was a radical departure from tradition. However, the process quickly caught on when it was realized that such a method was more humane, and allowed for the production of more domestic zoids than that Vealhelm's body modification. While primitive for their time, these first domesticated zoids – or "Joie Rides" as they were known at the time - proved to be extremely popular, as their mass production meant that they were no longer regulated to the upper class. It is estimated that by the end of the decade nearly two-thirds of the total population on Delpoi owned a domestic zoid in one form or another.

Reversal of Directions

Change would come again in the year ZAC 1909. Once stable weather patterns shifted, throwing the Central Continent into what we would equate to a prolonged El Niño/La Niña effect. While these shifts in oceanic temperatures were common, the Year without a Winter, as it would come to be called in Delpoi, would play a critical role in the centuries to come.

For some time oceanographers – specifically members of the Tribe of the Sea – had noticed a slow but steady change in the planet's oceans. The Great Peg'sun Conveyance – Zi's thermohaline circulatory system – had begun to change directions, specifically within the regions of the Akua Sea and Florecio Ocean. Recent volcanic activity on the Akua seafloor had altered the temperatures of the surrounding water by several degrees, and caused a massive amount of heavy minerals to be released into the oceanic conveyor belt. In turn this caused the currents to reverse upon themselves, and drive the now warmer waters of the Akua south into the Florecio along The Eastern Central Continental Shelf. Weather patterns within the region quickly changed alongside the shifting currents. The eastern part of Delpoi, as well as northern parts of the Eastern Continent Edem-Arcadia, soon found itself wracked by seasonal tropical storms, as western parts of Delpoi and southern Edem-Arcadia began to dry up. Within the span of eleven years once lush grasslands had been reduced to dusty savannahs even as sparse woodlands grew into budding jungles.

Symptoms of Change: The West

The redirection of the Great Peg'sun Conveyance spelt the doom for the western part of Delpoi, known to its inhabitance as "Darias". Robbed of their annual wet seasons, the savannahs of the Aridian Steppes quickly wilted and became barren bushlands. The Adriud River, which fed the grain-rich Tytus Plains, slowly began to flood as the glaciers that fed it retreated under the scorching temperatures. It would only take seven brief years of rainless skies and poor farming practices to ruin both the geopolitical and economic landscape of the Western Territories.

Each passing year brought only more devastation. With fewer and fewer opportunities available to them, many turned to alternate means of supplementing their income. Crime, once virtually unheard of amongst the Tribes, began to spread throughout the Western Territories. Murder and violence became every-day occurrences as people competed against each other for what little food and water remained. Others turned to theft and banditry of the trade routes in hopes of gleaning the untold wealth and resources of the merchant caravans. More often than not, these hostilities spilled out beyond Darias and into the Central Territories of Elysius and Eastern Territories of Diorne. It would not take much to spark all-out war between the territories.

From the Earth, A Hero

The spring of ZAC 1920 would prove the spark needed for the First Central Continental Civil War. Fought initially between the expanding Earth and Wind tribes over boarder disputes, it quickly drew in all the tribes of Delpoi until the Central Continent was split down the middle. It's after effects would be felt for centuries to come.

The First Central Continental Civil War has its origins in the lawlessness that sprang up during the death of the Western Territories. Those communities that had managed to weather the drought and flooding quickly found themselves inundated with hungry and thirsty refugees. In turn, these refugees, traveling east to the lusher lands of Dionre, became targets for bandits and highwaymen looking to profit off their hardships; those unable to give into their demands of ransom generally ended up paying with their own lives. Homesteads and communities that had managed to survive the disasters quickly found themselves inundated with hungry and thirsty refugees seeking shelter and sustenance.

One such community was a village known as 'Beside the Depths of the Earth.' Located in the western foothills of the Phoenix Mountains, Beside the Depths of the Earth was one of the few above-ground settlements located within Earth Tribe territory. For years it had supplied the Earth Tribe with the majority of its nuts and grains. Supplied water by an underground lakes and natural aquifers, it was one of the few communities that had managed to weather the drought that gripped Darias in a stranglehold. However, this abundance in the face of adversity would prove too much of a temptation. Refugees traveling east quickly overwhelmed the large farming community. Raiders and bandit - whom plagued the trains of refugees - were quick to follow. In a matter of months By the Depths of the Earth found itself under siege, its fields stripped bare, and on the verge of collapsing as its leaders bickered and argued over how best to deal with the situation.

As Beside the Depths of the Earth's situation deteriorated, a group of villagers came together with an audacious plan. As the village elders warred amongst themselves, the group would travel to the Earth Tribe's capital, Joutin, and ask the Council of Equals for help. It was a simple and straightforward idea, but one that seemed doomed to fail from the very beginning. There was an underlying fear amongst the villagers that the Council, which had exiled them to the surface in the first place, would reestablish control over the village as it had done during its establishment. Try as they might, though, the majority could not ignore the fact that they would need outside aid to deal with the problem. So, in the end, it was agreed upon that a small envoy would be sent to Joutin in hopes of soliciting aid against and guidance.

The Council's decision on whether or not to send relief to By the Depths of the Earth had been reached even before the envoy had set foot within the capital. Born into power, and full of selfish arrogance bred from isolationist philosophy, the councilmembers saw no reason to alleviate the village's suffering. Though they supplied the various tribe's underground settlements with much-needed grain and solar energy, the surface was a dangerous place – a frontier – fit only for the poor, the criminally convicted, and the Casteless; its inhabitance were perceived as little more than second-class citizens, if not outright social outcasts or nonpersons. To say that there was a general lack of interest towards their surface holdings amongst the Earth Tribe's nobility would be an understatement. Yet, it was this perception that a lone war-chief had long since struggled to resolve. For as long as he cared to remember, the headstrong Guylos From the Depths had advocated a stronger defense of the Earth Tribe's territories, knowing that the tribe had become a target in this time of need.

It was inevitable that Guylos and his superiors would clash over how best to secure the tribe's future. He knew if the Earth Tribe was to survive the coming drought, then the above-ground grain fields and their caretakers would also have to survive. The Council brushed his claim aside as the works of a paranoid delusion. He demanded that they take action against the bandits that had been terrorizing the Earth Tribe's surface territories. They shouted him down with rhetoric of them being outcastes and criminals. He demanded a troop of his own to defend the field and their tenders. They derided him for not truly caring for his own people's safety, and dismissed him as easily as brushing dust from one's boots. The possessor of a fierce and fiery passion, Guylos could not accept the discussions of his superiors to leave the outlying settlements to fend for themselves. Unable to sit back and watch his people's future survival be destroyed, the headstrong war-chief set out against direct orders to aid the village of By the Depths of the Earth, and, in doing so, become a living legend throughout Delpoi…

An Unwelcomed Arrival

From the start Guylos From the Depths encountered difficulty on the road to Beside the Depths of the Earth. Though an accomplished warrior and strategist, he was unaccustomed to the harsh realities of life above ground. Blinding sun, unbearably cold nights, and highwaymen would plague him for his entire journey.

The trip took roughly two weeks for Guylos to make. The first three days of the journey was relatively uneventful save for severe bouts of vertigo and partial blindness that came from a life of living underground. The fourth day found him held up by a quartet of robbers whom had made the mistake of choosing to ambush him, and in turn paid for it with their lives. Days five through twelve were as with the first three, uneventful, but perfect for plotting and planning stratagem. On the thirteenth day Guylos arrived. The welcoming he received was not as one would have expected. The once dusty, deserted streets sprung to life the moment he dismounted his realga war-steed. Armed with blades and sharpened staves the villagers of Beside the Depths of the Earth descended upon him in a mad frenzy. Taken by surprise, there was little he could do as they bound and chained him.

"In the names of the Gods, I demand to know the meaning of this!" Guylos bellowed fiercely, as he struggled to free himself. "I come to you at your request, under a banner of peace, and you bind me as if I were a layman! By what rights do you have to treat a war-chief with such dishonor?"

"By the same rights you have to besiege our town and kill its people!" A woman's voice cried above the others just moments before the world went black and silent…


End file.
